The present invention relates in general to providing services (e.g., medical care and supervision) of a service requester (e.g., medical patient) by a service provider not in the same immediate location, and, more specifically, to a method of operating an Internet-based video telephony and database system for conducting two-way video communications supplemented by presenting digital data records to a service provider automatically in response to a video telephony call.
In connection with providing medical care to patients, it is desirable to minimize the costs of care without compromising the quality of care. One manner of controlling costs is to treat a patient at home, thereby avoiding costs associated with a stay at a hospital. Regular nurse visitations and/or a caregiver on standby or “on-call” status are provided in order to attend to the needs of the home patient; however, the response time to react to an emergency medical situation is typically longer than when the patient is checked into a hospital.
In the context of hospitalization, costs can be reduced by controlling the size of the caregiving staff (e.g., nursing staff) to maximize the ratio of patients to caregiver. By maximizing the number of patients that can be handled by one caregiver, a greater cost reduction can be realized. Nevertheless, sufficient staff must be maintained to handle emergencies which may occur.
In a real or perceived emergency situation, a nurse or other caregiver needs to quickly establish communication (e.g., in-person communication or remote communication such as a telephone call or intercom) with the patient in order to assess their immediate needs, determine and administer an appropriate course of action, and to reassure the patient that any necessary care is forthcoming. An emergency alert may be manually initiated by a homebound patient placing a telephone call to a caregiver, by a patient pressing a call button in a hospital room, or by an automatic patient monitor detecting an alert condition. Once an emergency situation arises, the caregiver typically needs to 1) identify the patient, 2) retrieve the patient's charts or other records, 3) obtain any real-time monitoring or other information from the patient, 4) communicate any instructions or reassurances to the patient, 5) dispatch any needed assistance, and 6) update the patient's charts. A face-to-face visit (whether to a homebound patient or in a hospital room) is a relatively inefficient use of a caregiver's time, however, a conversation over an intercom or a telephone call provide only limited audio information which may be inadequate to address certain situations.
In connection with routine telephone calls to a service provider (medical or non-medical) or any other non-emergency communications, it can often be expected that some file records or other digital information associated with the initiator of the communication (e.g., a calling party) will be needed by the provider in handling the communication. For example, when making a routine telephone call to a doctor's office, the handling of the call is typically lengthened by the need of a responder (e.g., nurse) to access a patient file (electronic or paper). The nurse or other provider must manually initiate the file retrieval since it depends upon first learning of the identity of the requester (e.g., calling party).